Not a Wimp
Born with long, spaghetti-like arms, I've never had much confidence in my arm strength. Plus, my legs always made up for the lack of muscles in the upper body so I didn't worry about it. Why punch when you can kick right? Since I started working out with my trainer, we've been spending a lot of time on upper body exercises. Last night was no exception.
My trainer will frequently start me out with a certain amount of weight and then based on what color my face turns, he'll either add or subtract from that. When you're hanging out in the free weight section with a bunch of guys who could probably bench your whole body and then some, it can be a bit intimidating when you're only lifting super light weights and sometimes nothing more than a bar.
As with everything else, I tend to beat myself up about it too. "Oh man, I'm such a wimp" comes out of my mouth entirely too frequently. Just as my karate teacher told me to quit saying "I'm sorry" during sparring, my trainer last night told me to quit saying "I'm a wimp."
We tend to joke around a lot while working out, between sets, but when he said it last night he was serious. "I won't have anyone calling you a wimp, and I won't let you call yourself one either. You're definitely not a wimp." He went on to give me a little pep talk about how much I've improved and how we're ramping things up now and working on more than one body part per session. Part trainer, part cheerleader. That's why I picked him.
Frequently, I have no idea how much weight he has on the machines when I start working it, but last night he told me that he's throwing a lot more weight on there lately. The goal right now is building muscle endurance so I can stop going from full power to an empty tank. Trust me when I tell you that 7 or 8 reps come fairly easily but when I hit the last two. . . let's just say that last night he pretty much saved my face from an unfortunate meeting with a 15 lb. weight. I think my left arm is possessed sometimes and thought that maybe in exchange for all the punishment I was giving it, it thought I might like a bit of a snack in the form of a free weight.
In addition to saying my face from plastic surgery, I love how he has this plan for me. I told him what I want, and he knows how to get me there. It's fun, motivating, and a lot of good hard work too.
After wrecking my chest muscles and shoulders last night, we moved on to abs. He once again had something new for me. This time, he had me lie down on the mat, flat on my back. Then he stood facing me by my head. I had to reach over my head and hold onto his ankles while throwing my legs up straight and together at him. Once I was about to kick him, he would push my legs back down in different directions and I'd have to throw them back up at him. At first I started laughing and asked him if we were going to do those crazy two-person forward rolls that I used to be able to do when I was in gymnastics class many, many years ago.
He was laughing too and almost changed his mind about having me do them. He started to worry about whether or not my knee could take it. I told him my ACL is solid and to just avoid pushing my legs where I'm bruised. It's nice that he thinks about those things and is cautious about doing exercises that could potentially bother my knee. He has continued to push me but always stresses not wanting to reinjure me in any way, shape or form. Plus, me staying healthy is job security for him.
We did about four different abdominal exercises and I told him to give me another one. I finished the night off completely exhausted and barely able to put my own seatbelt on (my left arm/shoulder had developed a mind of its own after being destroyed for over an hour). But today, I know I'm stronger for it; and despite having trouble lifting my arms today, I know I'm not a wimp.
Lately I've been thinking that all things really do happen for a reason. For whatever reason, there were some additional lessons I needed to learn before shodan testing. Physical therapy and then joining a gym after this ACL mess has taught me a lot of discipline, and it's also brought more confidence in areas I didn't have it before. Plus, I'm getting in shape like never before and that will definitely impact the way karate goes for me back in the dojo.
Most importantly though. . . I'm not sorry and I'm definitely not a wimp. Maybe I should sell t-shirts. . .
Not Sorry
Not a Wimp
Would you buy one?
90% Back
I went back to the gym tonight and met with my trainer again. I swear in the three weeks I've been out, he has been working out extra. It looked like someone inflated his arms. When I told him he was holding out on me and asked him what he's been doing, he jumped up, grabbed the pull-up bars and did 15 pull-ups easily.
"Hmm," I said, "and I can't even do one unless you're holding 90% of my body weight."
He laughed. "Let's go girl. Let's get you back." He spent the next 40 minutes annihilating my biceps and triceps. For the first exercise, he handed me one of those straight bars that you're supposed to put weights on. "Girl, can you curl this?" he asked as he gently handed it to me. As I was taking it from him, he said, "it's 40 lbs."
I really wanted to lift that bar, but it was next to impossible. My legs are strong but my arms are still lagging behind. I moved it a couple inches and looked at him with pleading eyes, "I'm thinking this isn't going to happen" I told him.
A woman who was working out nearby, with arms like a body builder started laughing out loud. "I had faith in you! I thought you were going to do it!" she yelled across the floor.
"Yeah, well that's because I still have my sweatshirt on," I told her. "Wait until you see my spaghetti arms." She cracked up again and I announced that I'm happy my weakling arms can be of some amusement to someone.
My trainer handed me the 30 lb. curling bar for what he calls "21's." I call them pure hell. I was relieved I could do it with 30, but grateful when he handed me the 20 lb. bar after a couple sets.
It is absolutely amazing how much you lose in the way of progress when you take a couple weeks off. My trainer assured me that the longer I work out, the less I'll fall back when I take a break. I just need to keep putting more time in.
I pushed it as hard as I could tonight, avoiding anything where I would have to kneel and felt good when my arms felt like jello and I could barely straighten them at the end of our session. I didn't think about my knee once the entire time except for when I told him those kneeling dips were out.
We saved abs for last, as usual, and tonight my trainer had some new torture for me. He did it all with me and I kept up just fine with him. That's the one thing I haven't let slide these past few post-surgical weeks. It was only a few days after surgery and I was sitting on the floor with my medicine ball, working it out. He told me he was impressed and that even if my arms are lagging behind, my core is getting stronger every day.
He told me he's got an arsenal of new things for me in the weeks to come. I'm excited to get to them.
When I was exchanging some work-out clothes from Christmas the other day, I was looking for some new t-shirts for the gym. There was one Nike one, part of the Live Strong clothing line. It said on the front "100% back."
I was so tempted to get it. Even if I don't wear it right away, I could keep it aside until I am 100% back. I held off though. I don't want to jump the gun and get ahead of myself. I'm 90% back. I'll find that shirt again when I'm ready. I'm going to be ready soon.
In the Interest of Avoiding the Topic of Surgery. . . Some Shameless Bragging
When I joined the gym back in the middle of October, you may recall that they measured my body fat percentage. I expected the worst, and it wasn't so bad. It came in at 21.6%, somewhere between "excellent" and "good."
I've been stepping on the scale every week or so and the numbers have stayed pretty much the same. They've fluctuated by a pound or two depending on how many cookies I ate over the holidays but I wasn't worried about not losing weight. That was never my intention. I just wanted to strengthen and tone.
So, I met with my trainer last night for the last time before surgery on Wednesday, and the body fat measuring thing was on the counter near where I was working out.
"Mind if I use this?" I asked him.
"No girl," he said as he filled in the info like weight and age and handed it over.
After a couple seconds, which felt like an eternity, the number popped up.
18.1% with a body mass index of 20.1.
My trainer flipped open his little book, found my age and traced his finger across. "Excellent" is 19.3.
18.1 people. 18.1.
This proves what I've known all along. I may not be losing weight, but I am definitely losing fat and replacing it with some serious muscle. Seeing progress like that is such a motivator. My goal is to return to working out as soon as I get my stitches out on January 14th and to return to karate the week of my birthday which is February 7th (I'll be turning 29 again, just in case you were curious).
And just so we're clear, even if I have to plan it myself, there will be a party.
Just Call Me the Abs Slayer
For Christmas, Mr. BBM got me some workout clothing, a bunch of CDs, and an IPOD touch. I was not at all expecting an IPOD. I was quite shocked, and was sort of baffled as to why he got it for me since my little green shuffle is pretty much my best friend.
I got him some travel coffee mugs and a thermos, a slant board and two medicine balls. I debated about the weight to get him. I didn't want to go too light, because he's a big bad man and all, so I decided on a 6.6 lb. ball and a lighter 4 lb. ball. The 4 lb. one hasn't yet arrived.
Mr. BBM's dad gave him a booklet on the "Abs diet." Mr. BBM started to feel like we were all trying to tell him something. Truly, I bought him the slant board because I know how helpful it has been to me and I got him one that can be used as a bench, etc. He doesn't have time to go to the gym so I figured I'd help him make one at home.
The day after Christmas, I told him to get on the board. I took him through the abs workout my trainer does with me and that I do pretty much every other day of the week. We didn't get through the whole workout when he decided he had done enough. I couldn't really blame him. I was doing it along with him and the 6 lb. ball was pretty intense.
The day after, Mr. BBM started complaining about his abs and how sore they were. Today, he says he can't stand up straight and is debating as to whether or not he has a terrible gut-wrenching stomach virus, a potential hernia, or just completely shredded abdominal muscles. I think it is safe to give me a new nickname. Just call me the Abs Slayer.
In other news, you can also call me the Fantasy Football Slayer! I won the championship last night in my one league, beating Ikigai by 13 points after a hard fought two week championship playoff. Thanks for all the good mojo!
Keep Your Mouth Shut
I worked out with my trainer last night. When I told him I wanted to do legs last night he smiled and laughed a bit as he said, "alright." I hate when he does that. I know he's going to kill me when he laughs like that.
He had me do toe touches on a step higher than I'm used to and with more weight. Instead of 10 or 15 reps, he made me do 20. Then it was on to squats with my back against one of those work-out balls, followed by wall sits. He did them with me and I'll tell you, he looked a whole lot more comfortable than I was while doing them.
When we hit the 45 seconds, my trainer just stood up. I had to crawl up the wall using the back of my head. Good stuff.
He put me on a prone leg curl then and despite the fact that I literally threw the weight up for the first rep, I refused to let him up the weight. Higher reps absolutely kill once you get to number 14 so I told him to forget it.
When he put me on calf raises though, I made the mistake of opening my mouth. He set the weight at 105 and I told him that I usually do 135. He smiled that smile and said "alright" and moved the weight up. He didn't tell me we were doing reps of 20 on that one too. My calves were absolutely wrecked when I was finished with three of those sets.
He usually has me do three ab exercises, but last night he had me do six. I've been working hard on my ab exercises all week long and it paid off. It's nice when you finish a set strong, not so nice when your trainer throws in an extra few since you're doing so well. I told him I only filled the tank up for 10. Those extra three were accomplished on fumes.
As I was leaving, he told me that he can definitely see that I'm getting stronger. I am just really hoping that the surgery I'm having in January doesn't set me back too far. I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere.
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